Friday, April 29, 2011

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, April 29, 2011
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasti

ng!

10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Red Red Robin by Rosie Flores
See Willie Fly By by The Waco Brothers
Bone to Pick by Black-Eyed Vermillion
DWI Marijuana Blues by The Imperial Rooster
The End by Peter Case
Castanets by Alejandro Escovedo
Me and Rose Connelly by Rachel Brookes
Highway Patrol by Junior Brown

Yes Ma'am, He Found Me in a Honky Tonk by Gal Holiday
Dope Smokin' Song by Jesse Dayton
Waitin' on the Sky by Steve Earle
Three Bloodhounds Two Shepherds One Fila Brasileiro by Slim Cessna's Auto Club
When the Hammer Came Down by House of Freaks
Ruthie Lingle by 16 Horsepower
Meanest Jukebox In Town by Whitey Morgan
Broken Man by The Goddamn Gallows

ARHOOLIE SET
Brother Low Down by Jesse Fuller
Louisiana Rock by Clifton Chenier
I Knew You Didn't Want Me by K.C.Douglas
The Touch of God's Hand by Vern & Ray
Barushka by Howard Armstrong
Mean Boss Man by Mance Lipscomb
Pachuco Boogie by Don Tosti's Pachuco Boogie Boys
Yeah, Lord! Jesus Is Able by Rev. Louis Overstreet
I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag by Country Joe & The Fish

I Wish I Was A Single Girl Again by The Maddox Brothers & Rose
Lowdown Dirty Things by Skip James
Don't Forget Me Love by Toni Brown
Treasury Scandal by Atilla the Hun
The Dirty Dozen by Butch Cage & Willie B. Thomas
Come See by Bobby Neurwirth
Lawtell Two-Step by Pine Leaf Boys
Up on Telegraph Avenue by Lightnin' Hopkins
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets


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Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list

Thursday, April 28, 2011

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: Arhoolie Howls!

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
April 29, 2011




American music would have been a lot poorer had German immigrant Chris Strachwitz not gotten the weird notion to make trips to Texas to record bluesmen Lightnin’ Hopkins and Mance Lipscomb a half century ago and start his own record company to make these treasures available to the public.

Over the years, Strachwitz’s Arhoolie label has given us music by some of the most important blues, hillbilly, folk, zydeco, Cajun, Tex-Mex and gospel musicians known (or unknown) to humanity. Arhoolie albums are like musical DNA, building blocks of a musical heritage most of us take for granted. Its catalog has branched out to include music from Mexico and the Caribbean, but it’s the sound of the rural South that is the core of Arhoolie.

In honor of Arhoolie’s 50th anniversary, the company has given us Hear Me Howling! Blues, Ballads and Beyond. The package consists of four CDs, plus a book detailing Arhoolie’s history.

Mississippi Fred McDowell with  Strachwitz 
Most of the music — four hours and 40 minutes worth — has never been released before, and many of those songs that previously have seen the light of day had only been on LP decades ago. All the music here was recorded in Strachwitz’s adopted hometown of San Francisco, some in the pre-Arhoolie ’50s. Tony Bennett might have left his heart there, but Hear Me Howling shows that other musicians just left a lot of great recordings there.

Some of the musicians lived in the land of Rice-A-Roni, but many were passing through and were captured live at festivals, coffee-house concerts, and even house parties. Mississippian Skip James, for instance, was recorded at Strachwitz’s home. Can you imagine how cool it must have been to have Skip James in your living room, playing your piano and moaning his ghostly blues?

James isn’t the only major dude to appear in this collection. There are San Fran bluesman Jesse Fuller, Sonny Terry (born Saunders Terrell, no relation), Bukka White, Lonnie Johnson, zydeco deity Clifton Chenier, Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton, Rev. Gary Davis, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Big Joe Williams and, of course, Hopkins and Lipscomb.

Some highlights of this collection include Hopkins’ “Up on Telegraph Avenue” — also recorded at Strachwitz’s house — which is a funny and lecherous encounter between the old blues codger and “a little hippie girl” in a miniskirt who offers herbal treats.

There are four Lipscomb songs here. This soft-spoken guitar picker is a Texan, but his music reminds me a lot of that of Mississippi John Hurt, especially the tune “Sugar Babe.”

Some of the most intense songs are by Big Joe Williams. His session was recorded shortly after he had been released from the psychiatric ward of the local jail. Thus he sings “Greystone (Alameda County Jail) Blues” with blood in his eye. And “Oakland Blues,” sung by his wife Mary Williams, sounds even more frightening.

There’s even a 1965 version of the anti-war classic “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag” by an early version of Country Joe & the Fish. This was a pre-electric Fish that sounded like the West Coast cousin of Jim Kweskin & The Jug Band. One thing I learned from the Howling book — Joe McDonald was named by his leftist parents for Joseph Stalin, whose nickname was “Country Joe.” Maybe this was a Communist plot!

Those musicians mentioned are just the ones you’re likely to have heard of. Some of the most amazing performances here are by those who are mainly known to Arhoolie devotees and other serious lunatics. For instance there’s the Rev. Louis Overstreet, a Southerner who ended up in Arizona, preaching at a church called St. Luke’s Powerhouse Church of God in Christ. Overstreet played electric guitar with his hands and played a bass drum with his feet, backed by his four sons on vocals.

There’s K.C. Douglas, a singing garbage man — I’m not making this up — who lived in Berkeley. There are four tracks by Douglas here including the title song. Most of his contributions are acoustic numbers — my favorite, “I Know You Didn’t Want Me” features a band, including sax and piano.

I had actually heard of Toni Brown before. She was in an old female-fronted hippie band called the Joy of Cooking that made several albums in the post-flower-power era. But I never realized until now what a great country singer she was. Hear Me Howling has three songs credited to Brown, all of them sweet, soulful acoustic hillbilly tunes in which she sings like a young Kitty Wells.

There’s also “Charles Guiteau,” a fun little assassination ballad by Crabgrass, an old-timey string band of which Brown was a member. And there’s an acoustic Joy of Cooking song, “Midnight Blues,” though I prefer Brown’s country stuff.

Santa Fe’s most prominent folkie, the late Rolf Cahn, isn’t on this album. But there are songs by two of the women he loved — Barbara Dane and Debbie Green, so Cahn is here, howling in spirit.

Country, blues, and folk tunes make up the bulk of this collection. But the fourth disc includes some jazz from the Bay Area by acts like the Now Creative Arts Jazz Ensemble, guitarist Jerry Hahn, drummer Smiley Winter, and saxman Huey “Sonny” Simmons. Interesting stuff, but Chenier’s “Louisiana Rock” and Big Mama’s “Ball and Chain” are the highlights of disc four for me.

Strachwitz is pushing 80 now, but Arhoolie isn’t showing its age. As a foreigner, Strachwitz found the music of America wild and magical. We should thank him and Arhoolie for letting us here these crazy sounds through fresh ears.

Check out www.steveterrell.blogspot.com. Arhoolie on the airwaves: Hear a special Arhoolie set on The Santa Fe Opry 10 p.m. Friday on KSFR-FM 101.1.

Blog bonus: Here's  my personal Top 10 favorite Arhoolie albums.


1 America’s Most Colorful Hillbilly Band Vol. 1 by Maddox Brothers & Rose: These southern immigrants to California had more fun than hillbillies ought to be allowed to have.


2 Pachuco Boogie: The lion’s share of the songs and indeed, the heart and soul of this CD belong to Edmundo Martínez Tostado, an El Paso native better known by his stage name: Don Tosti. Tosti — an accomplished jazzman who became a jump-blues icon of zoot-suit culture.

3 Louie Bluie Soundtrack: This is music from a quirky documentary made in the mid '80s  by Terry Zwigoff, who is more famous for Crumb. It stars fiddler/mandolinist Howard Armstrong, who plays blues, gospel and jazz tunes — not to mention a German waltz and a Polish tune. As he explains in the movie, Armstrong was fluent in several languages, including Italian and a little Chinese, which, he said, helped him get gigs when he moved from Tennessee to Chicago.

4 Live at the Powerhouse Church of God by Rev. Louis Overstreet. An electric guitar-picking, bass-drum-pounding preacher whose church was in Phoenix. Most of this album was recorded by Strachwitz during church services in 1962. But the CD version has some bonus tracks,  including several recorded at Overstreet's home in which the preacher plays acoustic guitar.

5 Big Mama Thornton with The Muddy Waters Band. Good basic Chicago blues, recorded in San Francisco. I’d have hated to have been the “hound dog” Big Mama sang about. But the “Black Rat” she lays in on this album sounds like he’s in worse trouble.

6 Good Morning Mr. Walker by Joseph Spence. Bahaman Spence was an amazing guitarist whose thick dialect made him sound like a wino from Mars when he sang his joyful tunes.

7 Sacred Steel. This style of gospel music began in the late 1930s in the House of God, an African- American Pentecostal denomination. Although the steel guitar became popular in House of God congregations that were not able to afford an organ or piano. Arhoolie has done several sacred steel compilations. The first one, release in 1997, features some of the giants of the genre including Willie Eason, The Cambell Brothers, Aubrey Ghent and Sonny Treadwell.

8 & 9 Calypsos From Trinidad: Politics, Intrigue and Violence in the 1930s; and The Roots of Narcocorrido.  These collections, although representing different countries and different styles of music, both are collections of songs, many of them controversial, dealing with politics and crime.

10 Old Time Black Southern String Band Music by Butch Cage & Willie B. Thomas,  Recorded back in 1960, but not released until five years ago,  this is nothing but party music, at least the way they used to have parties in the rural South. I was too young to have been invited to this party, but this is the next best thing.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Political Correctness As Fast as Lightning

A man at a seaside pub on the Isle of White was arrested -- arrested! -- on charges of "racially aggravated harassment" for performing the 1974 Carl Douglas hit "Kung Fu Fighting."

Read all about it HERE (Thanks to Rob for showing me this.)

Meanwhile, enjoy the video below .... WHILE YOU STILL CAN!





Tuesday, April 26, 2011

R.I.P. Poly Styrene, Phoebe Snow & Huey Meaux,

This morning I learned of the deaths of two very different singers whose music affected me in different ways at different times: Poly Styrene of The X-Ray Specs and Phoebe Snow, who is best remembered by folks my age for her 1975 hit "Poetry Man," though I remember her for a couple of other dark, smoky tunes from her first album, "It Must Be Sunday" and "I Don't Want the Night to End."

Also last week famed producer Huey Meaux, the Crazy Cajun died. He was the producer of Freddy Fender, The Sir Douglas Quintet, Roy Head and others.

Here's some videos to remember them by:






Sunday, April 24, 2011

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, April, 24 2011
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell



Webcasting!

101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Live it Up by Nobunny
Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues by Bob Dylan
Peter Cottontail by The Bubbadinos
Rambling Rose by Barrence Whitfield & Savages
Black Snake by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears
Preachin' At Traffic by The Legendary Shack Shakers
Do the Climb by King Salami & The Cumberland 3
Dirty Kid by Hell Crab City
Laugh at Me by The Devil Dogs
Take A Bath by Charles Sims

Pontiac Flannigan by Churchwood
Luck by The Manxx
Born to Lose by Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers
Adictos Al Ye-Ye by Hollywood Sinners
You Broke My Mood Ring by Root Boy Slim & The Sex Change Band
I Wish You Would by The Fleshtones
New Orleans by The Plimsouls with The Fleshtones
Cornfed Dames by The Cramps

21 Days in Jail by Magic Sam
Dead End Street by The Monsters
Hey You by Simon Stokes & The Heathen Angels
He's Doin' It by The Gories
I Would Die 4 U by The Rockin' Guys
Truck Stop Urinal by The Plainfield Butchers
El Sadistico by Deadbolt
Grifted by New Bomb Turks
Bennie & The Jets by The Hickoids

Heaven and Back by The Mekons
California Tuffy by Geraldine Fibbers
Tryin' by The King Khan & BBQ Show
You Make Your Own Heaven and Hell Right Here on Earth by The Tempations
The Sniper by The Black Angels
Moby Octopad by Yo La Tengo
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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The New Big Enchilada Podcast is Served

THE BIG ENCHILADA




Wilder, wilder, faster faster! It's a feral new episode of the Big Enchilada with uncivilized sounds by Roky Erikson & The Nervebreakers, Davilla 666, Mojo Nixon, King Salami, Guitar Wolf, plus The Ultimatemost High, Scorpion vs. Tarantula, Mark Steiner and many more.

Play it here:



DOWNLOAD | SUBSCRIBE| SUBSCRIBE TO ALL | FACEBOOK | ITUNES

Here's the playlist

(Background Music: Wild Track by Guitar Frank)
Wildest Cat in Town by Crazy Cavan & The Rhythm Rockers
Killer Wolf by The Ultimatemost High *
Bo Diddley's a Headhunter by Roky Erickson & The Nervebreakers
Rimbaud Diddley by Churchwood
The Dozens by Eddie "One String" Jones

(Background Music: Wild Trip by Flat Duo Jets)
Shake it Wild by King Salami & The Cumberland 3
Short Leash by Scorpion vs. Tarantula *
Robacuna by Davila 666
She's So Predictable by Graceland
I Just Dropped in to See What Condition My Condition Was In by Mojo Nixon
Drunk by Mark Steiner & His Problems *

(Background Music: Jungle Call by The Gaynighters)
Wild Bikini Girl by Guitar Wolf
Glam Racket by The Fall
I've Got a Feelin' by Big Maybelle
Wilder Wilder Faster Faster by The Cramps

* These tunes are from the fantastic new GaragePunk Hideout compilation, It Came From the Hideout. Join the Hideout and get this and upcoming compilations for free! Otherwise download them at Amazon, eMusic, iTunes or Napster.

Friday, April 22, 2011

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, April 22, 2011
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Where Do You Want It by Whitey Morgan & The 78s
That's What She Said Last Night by Billy Joe Shaver
Bad News by Johnny Cash
Jones on the Jukebox by Gal Holiday
The Selfishness in Man by George Jones
Cowboy Boots by Eddie Spaghetti
Love My Baby by Walker & The Texas Dangers
Hillbilly Blues by Eddy "The Chief" Clearwater with Los Straitjackets
The Silver Tongued Devil and I by Shooter Jennings

Jumpercable Blues by North Mississippi Allstars
(Give Me) One More Mile by Peter Case
God Has Left the Building by The Imperial Rooster
Rollergirl Gail by The Misery Jackals
EZ Ridin' Grumblers by Sanctified Grumblers
Mean Kind of Love by Rachel Brooke
Honky Tonk Gal by Carl Perkins
You Turned Your Back by Toni Brown
R.I.P. Hazel Dickens


Busted by Hazel Dickens
West Virginia My Home Hazel & Alice
Are They Going to Make Us Outlaws Again by Hazel Dickens

Hoboes Are My Heroes by Th' Legendary Shack Shakers
Molly O by Steve Earle
Truck Driver by Scott H. Biram
She's My Neighbor by Zeno Tornado & The BOney Google Brothers
Gentleman in Black by Tav Falco

Paperboy by Roy Orbison
I Should Have Married Marie by Cornell Hurd
It's 4:20 Somewhere by Chief Greenbud
Just a Girl I Used to Know by Bobby Osborne
Long Way to Hollywood by Steve Young
One Will Do For Now by Peter Stampfel & The Worm All Stars
United Brethren by Slim Cessna's Auto Club
Treasures Untold by Doc Watson
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list

R.I.P. Hazel Dickens

I just learned about the death of one of the finest, most authentic and most under-rated country singers ever -- Hazel Dickens -- has died at the age of 75 in Washington, D.C. where she has lived for several years.

From The Washington Post:

Ms. Dickens grew up in dire poverty in West Virginia’s coal country and developed a raw, keening style of singing that was filled with the pain of her hardscrabble youth. She supported herself in day jobs for many years before she was heard on the soundtrack of the 1976 Oscar-winning documentary about coal mining, ”Harlan County, U.S.A.”
Her uncompromising songs about coal mining, such as “Black Lung” and “They Can’t Keep Us Down,” became anthems, and she was among the first to sing of the plight of women trying to get by in the working-class world.

I'll remember Hazel on The Santa Fe Opry tonight (10 p.m. Mountain Time on KSFR. Until then, here's a video of a Hazel song.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: Cessna, Morgan & Spaghetti

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
April 22, 2011


Here’s an innovative Denver band that’s been around for years and years. I should have been listening to these musicians for years and years, but somehow they escaped my attention until a couple of months ago.

Slim Cessna’s Auto Club is often billed as a “country gothic” band (whatever that is). Led by Cessna, who shares vocal duties with sidekick Jay Munly, the Auto Club often takes the viewpoint of sinners in the hands of an angry God. But on its new album, Unentitled, which some critics say is the group’s most accessible, many songs are so upbeat and happy-sounding that I really don’t think the “gothic” label does the band justice.

True, Auto Club has that banjo-apocalypse vibe of fellow Coloradans 16 Horsepower going full force on the first song, “Three Bloodhounds Two Shepherds One Fila Brasileiro.” This is a terrifying tale that deals with bloodhounds being set loose on some hapless target, perhaps an escaped prisoner. It takes me back to House of Freaks’ “When the Hammer Came Down.” The narrator of that tune, running from bloodhounds — though we’re never told exactly why — could almost be the victim in Cessna’s song.

However, the next tune, “The Unballed Ballad of the New Folk Singer,” takes off with an eye-opening, frantic, almost ’90s ska-like beat. The music is fierce and thundering and, no, not very “country” (though I can imagine a band like the Legendary Shack Shakers doing something like this).

The following song, “Thy Will Be Done,” gets back to the banjo with an almost raga-like melody and some otherworldly whistle instrument I have yet to identify. I’m not quite sure why, but when I hear this song I want to mix in some Tuvan throat singers. Somehow they’d just fit in.

That old-time religion — backwoods hellfire style — is a major theme with the Auto Club. The first three minutes or so of “A Smashing Indictment of Character” has an upbeat- sanctified rhythm, the kind Paul Simon employed on songs like “Gone at Last.”

But some subsequent tunes get darker and spookier. The seven-minute “Hallelujah Anyway” is a twisted tale of an arranged wedding. But even better is the closing song, “United Brethren,” an emotional tune about a preacher losing his congregation to another church — just as his great-grandfather had experienced. It’s not a problem most of us will ever face, but as Munly pleads at the end of the song, “Lord have mercy upon us” in his lonesome tenor with just an autoharp behind him, only the most hard-hearted heathen would be unmoved.

“My people always been United Brethren. Cessnas always does as told,” Slim sings at the outset of the tune. This free-spirited record proves that’s probably not true.

So ya wanna talk about country rock ... also recommended:

*Whitey Morgan & the 78’s. Hands down, this record, released late last year, is the most “pure” country album Bloodshot Records has put out since ... well, since the latest Wayne Hancock album a couple of years ago.

Morgan, whose real name is Eric Allen, is a Flint, Michigan, native, but he’s got a voice that’s bound to remind you of a young Waylon Jennings, or — I almost hesitate to say it — Hank Williams Jr., back in the days when Bocephus was good, before he became such a caricature of himself.

I was hooked from the first track, “Bad News,” a John D. Loudermilk tune covered some 40 years ago by Johnny Cash and, believe it or not, former Los Angeles Ram Roosevelt Grier, who sang it on some TV variety show (I forget which one) in the late ’60s.

Whitey salutes his musical heroes like George Jones in “Turn Up the Bottle” (the rest of the refrain being, “and turn up the Jones”). And he does a rowdy cover of “Where Do Ya Want It?” — Dale Watson’s tale of Billy Joe Shaver’s Waco shooting incident.

While Morgan is good at doing other people’s songs (there are Johnny Paycheck and Hank Cochran songs here, too), he is a decent songwriter himself. “Buick City,” a fast-paced tune about his hometown’s economic woes, is a highlight. It’s a nice little illustration of how times have changed. In the early ’60s, Mel Tillis wrote and Bobby Bare sang “Detroit City,” about a lonesome Southerner who moves to Michigan for economic reasons. In “Buick City” Morgan yearns to go to greener pastures in the South — Austin, Texas, to be exact.

* Sundowner by Eddie Spaghetti. Unlike Morgan, nobody would be likely to mistake Mrs. Spaghetti’s baby boy for Waylon or Bocephus or David Allan Coe.

But Eddie, who’s best known as the lead singer of Supersuckers, has always had an special place in his heart for country music. You could sense a country/rockabilly vibe in some of Supersuckers’ records even before the group made a stab at country rock in Must’ve Been High in the late ’90s. And Eddie’s solo records, including this one, have been full of fun country tunes.

Here he sings Johnny Cash’s “What Do I Care?” Steve Earle’s “If You Fall in Love,” and a better-than-it-should-be take on “Always on My Mind.” (Willie Nelson had a hit with it, and Elvis sang it before Willie.)

And there’s some countrified punk rock here. Spaghetti versions of the Dwarves’ “Everybody’s Girl” and the Lee Harvey Oswald Band’s “Jesus Never Lived on Mars.”

My favorites on Sundowner are “Party Dolls and Wine” (a country-rock take on a Dean Martin tune) and Del Reeves’ twang-heavy truck-driver hit “Girl on the Billboard.”

The Whitey Morgan and the Eddie Spaghetti albums are from Bloodshot Records.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

FROGFEST 6


The Frogfest 6 lineup has been announced, and once again it's a great array of, mostly, New Mexico talent. Sadly I don't see Hundred Year or Goshen, but the rest of the lineup is solid. Most of the acts are associated with Santa Fe's Frogville Records.

It's going back to a two-day event after being just one day for the past few years. Mark your calendars for May 28-29 at the Santa Fe Brewing Company.

Monday, April 18, 2011

In Honor of the Free Music Archive's 2nd Anniversary

Here's a mix of 13 songs I've known, loved and downloaded from the FMA.

Enjoy. Or better yet, go to the Free Music Archives and make your own mixes.


Sunday, April 17, 2011

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, April 17, 2011
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell



Webcasting!

101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
I Walked With the Zombie by Roky Erikson & The Nervebreakers
Don't Slander Me by Lou Ann Barton
New Orleans Walkin' Dead North Mississippi Allstars
Can O' Worms by Churchwood
Blew My Speakers by The Angel Babies
Bad Boy by The Backbeat Band
Dizzy, Miss Lizzy by Larry Williams
Shout by The Isley Brothers
Right String Baby (But the Wrong Yo Yo) by Carl Perkins

Grease Box by TAD
I Don't Think So by Dinosaur Jr.
I'm Now by Mudhoney
Who Was in My Room Last Night by The Butthole Surfers
Funnel of Love by Wanda Jackson with The Cramps
One Monkey Don't Stop No Show by Big Maybelle
Hot Skillet Momma by Yochanan
Show Me by Joe Tex
Bumble Bee by LaVerne Baker

It Came From The Hideout/Records to Ruin Any Party Set
(For More Info CLICK HERE )
Whistlebait Baby by Lovestruck
I Need More by The Cynics
Dust My Broom by The Jukejoint Pimps
Brush your Tits by Mondo Ray
Short-Term Memory Lane by J.J. by The Real Jerks
Two-Headed Demon by Urban Junior
Short Leash by Scorpion Vs. Tarantula
She by Audio Kings of the Third World
I'm Going Away Girl by The Monsters
City of Bother and Loathe by Jukebox Zeroes

She Floated Away by Husker Du
Rosemary's Baby by Half Japanaese
Gorgeous by Kustomized
Thrash City by Poly Styrene
She's So Scandalous by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears
Hymn No. 5 by The Mighty Hannibal
Lonely Town by Stan Ridgway
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis
Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE

Friday, April 15, 2011

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, April 15, 2011
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Meet Me in the Alleyway by Steve Earle
Reefer Load by Scott H. Biram
Chug-A-Lug Mojo Nixon And The World Famous Blue Jays
I Ain't Drunk by Whitey Morgan
Rock 'n' Roll Yodel by Johnny Wildcard
Come Back Uncle John by Ronnie Dawson
Sneaky Snake by Buddy Miller with Duane Eddy
Everybody's Girl by Eddie Spaghetti
I'll Be Glad When You're Dead by The Great Recession Orchestra

Foolkiller by Johnny Rivers
Sixpack to Go by Gal Holiday
Get Lost, You Wolf! by Hylo Brown And The Timberliners
Honky Tonkin' by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Blue Yodel No. 4 by Bill Monroe & His Blue Grass Boys
Ruby Ridge by Peter Rowan
My Four Reasons by Howard Armstrong with Ikey Robinson
Long Gone Daddy by Jimmie & Leon Short
Foothill Boogie by Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys
Who Puts The Cat Out When Papa's Out of Town by Sam Nichols

VOODOO RHYTHM COUNTRY
Blood by Zeno Tornado & The Boney Google Brothers
The Coo-Coo Bird by Andy Dale Petty
Slide Off Of Your Satin Sheets by DM Bob & The Deficits
Teardrops by Sixtyniners
Le Pistolet by Mama Rosin
Cold And Blind by Possessed By Paul James
Honest I Do by John Schooley
Chopped by The Watzloves
Blue Moon Of Kentucky by Rev, Beat-Man

Ballad of Clara Mae by E. Christina Herr & Wild Frontier
Peach Blossom by Hundred Year Flood
Katie Mae by David Johansen
I Want My Crown by The Swan Silvertones
Set 'em Up (I'm Afraid to Go Home) by Cornell Hurd
No Reason to Quit by Merle Haggard
LSD by Wendell Austin
The Fame of Lofty Deeds by Jon Langford
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE

Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform

American Roots Radio list

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: Hits from the Hideout

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
April 15, 2011



A few months ago, Jeff “Kopper” Kopp stumbled across Little Steven’s Underground Garage compilation series The Coolest Songs in the World. He was not impressed.

“Looking over the track lists on these, I thought to myself, ‘Wow, these are what he thinks are the coolest songs in the world? Hell, the bands on the Hideout have better stuff than this,’ ” Kopper wrote over at the GaragePunk Hideout, an internet social network he established for rock ’n’ roll misfits and miscreants.

In fairness to Little Steven, the Coolest Songs collections have been graced by bands like The Stooges, The Dictators, The Fleshtones, The Chesterfield Kings, and The Hentchmen.

But Kopper was right. There are indeed unknown bands lurking around the Hideout that put most of the Coolest Songs acts to shame. So he invited bands there to submit original songs for a new independent garage-punk compilation series. It Came From the Hideout: The Best of the GaragePunk Hideout Vol. 1 was unleashed this week with a bitchen monster-cartoon cover by a resident Hideout artist, an Austrian known only as Idon Mine.

(Disclosure time: My Big Enchilada podcast is part of the GaragePunk Hideout Podcast Network. It’s a labor of love I don’t get paid for. Not even in hookers and blow. And except for encouraging some bands I know to submit songs, I’m not in any way connected to this compilation.)

What’s impressive here is the variety of sounds within the primitive guitar-rock framework. There’s beer-bust bar rock; sweet, savage girl punk; mutant blues; good old- fashioned snot punk; and even Swedish surf rock from The Surfites, a Stockholm band.

The collection starts out with a new tune from the one band here that you might have actually heard of before. The Cynics is a Pittsburgh group that started out back in the mid-1980s. “I Need More,” with its catchy melody and jangly guitar, sounds like pumped-up, fuzzed-out folk rock.

That’s followed by “Short Term Memory Lane,” a boozy, harmonica-driven rave-up by J.J. & The Real Jerks, a Los Angeles band that also features a piano and sax. That leads into “Bollywood Woman” by The Above, which has a British Invasion, early Who feel, though the band is actually from New York.

A couple of my favorite tracks on this collection are by groups with female vocalists. The Manxx is a Denver band doing a song called “Luck,” which has a hypnotic organ and slashing guitar. Then there’s “Whistlebait Baby,” which almost sounds like a punk bolero, by LoveStruck. This Brooklyn-based power trio, fronted by Danish singer Anne Mette Rasmussen, is one of my longtime favorite bands from the Hideout.

A couple of crazed Arizona groups are represented here. Scorpion vs. Tarantula does a wild, crunching tune called “Short Leash,” while The Plainfield Butchers do a pleasant little love song called “Truck Stop Urinal.”

One standout tune here is “She” by Audio Kings of the Third World. The Kings, who are from the third-world back roads of Philadelphia, list The Fall as one of their favorite bands. And indeed, singer Johnny O’s slow, singsong drawl has distinct traces of Mark E. Smith in it. And the fuzzy guitar is downright addictive.

Perhaps my favorite one is “Drunk” by Mark Steiner & His Problems. Steiner is an American who lives in Norway. The song is a sinister blues number that almost sounds like crime jazz, with sleazy sax and clanky percussion.

All in all, It Came From the Hideout is cooler than Coolest Songs.

And here’s some great news: Songs the Hideout Taught Us: The Best of the GaragePunk Hideout Vol. 2 is just around the corner, coming in mid-May. In fact, there’s supposed to be a new volume out every month through August.

The compilation is free to Hideout members and available for download in the usual places. There’s more information HERE.

Also recommended:


* Records to Ruin Any Party: Voodoo Rhythm Compilation Volume 3. Loyal readers of this column and listeners of my radio show know I’m an avid fan of Voodoo Rhythm Records, that Swiss label that’s home to psychobilly, damaged blues, garage rock, and criminally insane (that’s a step or two beyond “outlaw”) country music.

If you’ve ever been tempted to seek out some of the Voodoo Rhythm acts but haven’t quite taken the plunge to actually buy any of the records, this convenient, 21-track compilation would be a good place to start.

It’s a great sampling of stuff, mainly from albums released in the past two or three years. There are songs by The Movie Star Junkies and Delaney Davidson (doing songs from albums that made my 2010 Top 10 list). Label founder/owner Reverend Beat-Man’s frightening signature “Jesus Christ Twist” is there, as is a song by Beat-Man’s garage group The Monsters.

King Khan & The Shrines perform randy punk soul. The Pussywarmers do a gypsy- flavored stomper. You get one-man techno blues from Urban Junior, an acoustic Tom Waitsian dirge from The Dead Brothers, an Elmore James song as you’ve never heard it by Germany’s Juke Joint Pimps, and punchy blues from Hipbone Slim & The Knee Tremblers.

Though it’s a European label, this compilation is crawling with Americans. You’ll find wild one-man blues blasters like Bob Logg III and John Schooley, backwoods shouter Possessed by Paul James, California garage punkers The Guilty Hearts, and Alabama folkster Andy Dale Petty, who performs a straightforward version of “The Cuckoo Bird.”

And did I say something about crazy country? Check out Zeno Tornado & The Boney Google Brothers (Switzerland), Sixtyniners (Netherlands), and Mama Rosin’s Swiss/Cajun “Le Pistolet,” which features a weird a cappella doo-wop intro.

And if you want to go back further into Voodoo Rhythm history, the label recently re- released Volumes 1 and 2 in a two-disc set. You can order theVol. 3  CD from Voodoo Rhythm or download it on Amazon.com when it becomes available on April 22.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Live and Almighty


For your Thursday listening pleasure I just stumbled across a May 2010 concert by The Almighty Defenders, that garage/gospel supergroup featuring members of The Black Lips and King Khan & BBQ Show. (I reviewed their album HERE.)

Some of the stuff here was not on the album. Enjoy the show, courtesy of the Free Music Archive.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

The Road to Humiliating Youtube Apologies

(This also was posted on my political blog)

Ever since the day when both Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale were trying to ride on Bruce Springsteen's coattails, candidates have been using rock 'n' roll to try to carry their messages. Sometimes it backfires, as it did when former Talking Head David Byrne sued ex-Florida Gov. Charlie Crist for using his song "Road to Nowhere" in his doomed Senate campaign last year.

Wow, Tom Petty could mop up if he sued every politician who played "I Won't Back Down" at a political rally. (Are you listening Bill Richardson and Tom Udall?)

Actually, I liked it better when politicians still considered rock 'n' roll to be evil.

This video by Crist wasn't done out of the kindness of his heart. It's part of a settlement of a law suit by Byrne.



Here's the song. (Confession, I don't know whether it's authorized. But nobody's yanked it off YouTube yet.)

Sunday, April 10, 2011

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, April 10, 2011
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

Webcasting!
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead by Warren Zevon
Love Propaganda by Audio Kings of the Third World
Glam Racket bv The Fall
Grieving Man Blues by The Blue Giant Zeta Puppies
Spy Boy by Graceland
Reel Rock Party by Nick Curran and the Lowlifes
I've Got the Devil Inside by Rev. Beat-Man
Box-o-Wine by Dirtbag Surfers
Jack (Pepsi) by TAD

Booty City by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears
Three Hairs and You're Mine by King Khan & The Shrines
The World (Is Going Up In Flames)b y Charles Bradley
Ode to Billy Joe by Joe Tex
Your Thing Is A Drag by Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
Living For the City by The Dirtbombs
Whistle Bait by Barrence Whitfield & the Savages
Farmer John by Don & Dewey
The Dozens by Eddie "One String" Jones

Philosophy by The Manxx
Short Term Memory Lane by J.J. & The Real Jerks
U Bug Me by Modey Lemon
Sugar Snap Brain by Kilimanjaro Yak Attack
(We're a) Bad Trip by Mondo Topless
Fed Up With You by Candy Snatchers
Lee, Bob & Lula by LoveStruck
Supersize it by Half Japanese
Mambo del Pachuco by Don Tosti y Sus Conjunto

Kaiser by Gibby Haynes & His Problem
Jump, Jive & Harmonize by The Plimsouls
Fix These Blues by Heavy Trash
Zulu King by Cannibal & the Headhunters
What I Know by Grinderman
I Made A Vow by The Robins
Minor Blues by Pinetop Perkins & Willie "Big Eyes" Smith
I'm Goin' To Live The Life I Sing About In My Song by Mahalia Jackson
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

Saturday, April 09, 2011

eMusic April


* Louie Bluie Film Soundtrack by Howard Armstrong. About 30 years ago, my pal Alec turned me on to a fun little LP called Martin, Bogan & Armstrong. It was an old African-American string band recorded in the early '70s.

It wasn't "blues," there there were some bluesy tunes there. It wasn't "jug band." These guys were playing mainly pop and jazz tunes of bygone eras. The players were old guys but all excellent musician -- and they were full of Hell. They'd been playing together in various combinations since the '30s under names such as The Tennessee Chocolate Drops and The Four Keys.

For instance, they start out with a straight version of the  uptight WASPy frat  song "Sweetheart of Sigma Chi" (which before, I'd only heard performed by The Lettermen!) before they slip into a parody that was popular in the '20s ("She's the sweetheart of six other guys.") But my favorite MB&A song was "Do You Call That Buddy," which has a line that stuck with me for years: "If I had a million doughnuts, durn his soul, I wouldn't even give him a doughnut hole."

Just a few years ago I found Martin, Bogan & Armstrong on CD, as part of a twofer with a subsequent album That Old Gang of Mine. But even more recently I discovered a documentary called Louie Bluie made in the mid '80s directed by Terry Zwigoff, who is more famous for Crumb. The title character of Louie turns out to be fiddler/mandolinist Howard Armstrong. Also featured here is guitarist, singer Ted Bogan -- who catches continual unmerciful ribbing from Armstrong throughout the film.

The film tells the story of Armstrong (who got the nickname of "Louie Bluie" from a tipsy mortician's daughter) To quote Roger Ebert, "The movie is loose and disjointed, and makes little effort to be a documentary about anything. Mostly, it just follows Armstrong around as he plays music with Bogan, visits his Tennessee childhood home, and philosophizes on music, love and life." And I love it.

This soundtrack album on Arhoolie captures some of the greatest moments of the film, as well as some that didn't make the final cut. There's a delightfully filthy version of "Darktown Strutter's Ball." There's blues, gospel and jazz tunes. Also, a German waltz and a Polish tune. Yes, Armstrong, as he explains in the movie, was fluent in several languages, including Italian and a little Chinese. This, he said, helped him get gigs when he moved to Chicago.

Included on this album are some old songs originally released on 78rmp records, including some with Yank Rachell, who appears in the movie. A couple of these feature Sleepy John Estes on vocals.

Armstrong died in 2003 at the age of 94.

* Unentitled by Slim Cessna's Auto Club. This band often is billed as a "country gothic" band. Led by Cessna, who shares vocal duties with sidekick Jay Munly, the Auto Club often takes the guise as sinners in the hands of an angry God.

But on this album, which some critics are saying is the group's most accessible, so many songs are so upbeat and happy sounding, I really don't think the "gothic" label does them justice.

True, they've that 16 Horsepower banjo apocalypse vibe going full force on the first song, "Three Bloodhounds Two Shepherds One Fila Brasileiro" a harrowing tale that deals with bloodhounds being set loose on some hapless target, perhaps an escaped prisoner.

However, the very next song takes off with an eye-opening, frantic, almost '90s ska-like beat. The music is fierce and thundering and not very "country." Then  the following song "Thy Will Done" gets back to the banjo with an almost raga-like melody and some otherworldly whistle instrument I've yet to identify. The only thing this one lacks is Tuvan throat singers.

That old time religion is a major theme with the Auto Club. The 7-minute "Hallelujah Anyway" is a twisted tale of an arranged wedding. But even better is the closing song, "United Brethren," an emotional song of a preacher losing his congregation to another church -- just as his great-grandfather had experienced. It's not a problem most of us will ever face, but as Munly pleads, "Lord have mercy upon us ..." in his lonesome tenor with just an autoharp behind him, only the the most hard-hearted heathen would be unmoved.

* The Swan Silvertones 1946-1951. And speaking of spiritual crisis, the song "A Mother's Cry" on this album starts out with "Oh this world is in confusion .." -- and the listener isn't confused at all. It's the story of a mother whose son is fighting overseas. I would guess Korea.

Yes, those post WWII years covered by this album were confusing times indeed and, probably not coincidentally, great years for Black gospel music as well.

Take  "Jesus is God's Atomic Bomb," another tune in this collection. The Silvertones sing, "Oh have you heard about the blast in Japan/How it killed so many people and scorched the land." But it gets scarier. "Oh it can kill your natural body, but the Lord can kill your soul ...'

Yikes! World in confusion indeed.

The Swan Silvertones was an a capella group led by the great Claude Jeter, a former coal miner from Kentucky who wrote many of the songs here, including the ones I mentioned. This album captured their years at King Records. They weren't as raw sounding as The Five Blind Boys of Mississippi. They didn't have the irresistible personality of Sister Rosetta Tharpe or the sweet grace of Mahalia Jackson. But the Silvertones were solid and credible. And even now, a respite for confusing times.

* The tracks I didn't get last month from Hannibalism! by The Mighty Hannibal. This is not your average obscure lost '60s soul-shouter compilation. This album contains the greatest anti-war song of the Vietnam era that you've never heard. Written and recorded in 1966, "Hymn #5" is a first-person tale of a scared soldier. It's a minor-key moan that sounds like one of the spookiest minor-key gospel songs you can imagine.

"I'm waaaaayyyy over here, crawling' in these trench holes, covered with blood. But one thing that I know, (chorus comes in) There's no tomorrow, there's no tomorrow ..."


There's a sequel that came four years later -- following a stint in prison by Hannibal  for tax evasion -- another soldier's-eye-view of the war. It's good, but not a fraction as jolting as "Hymn #5."

I love Hannibal's early dance '60s tunes like "Jerkin' the Dog" (Settle down, Beavis!) and "Fishin' Pole." But I find his religious cautionary tales extremely fascinating. The moral of "The Truth Shall Make You Free" basically is that Jesus can help you kick heroin. Hardly original, but Hannibal sings with wild conviction. He was an addict for some years in the '60s. "There's nothin' I wouldn't do when I needed a fix/ I met the mother of my children goin', turning tricks," Hannibal testifies. And  its dark psychedelic/Blaxplotation guitar touches and the "Pappa Was a Rollin' Stone" bass line make you wonder why the song and the singer didn't become better known.

Even wilder is the final song, "Party Life." What can you say about a song that starts out "There was a pimp by my house the other day ..." Next thing you know, said pimp has taken the singer's daughter and she ends up in a hospital in Kentucky in such bad mental condition she doesn't even recognize her own dad. Seriously, people, keep those pimps away from your home!

Friday, April 08, 2011

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, April 8, 2011
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Tex-Mex Mile by The Gourds
Heavy Breathin' by Cornell Hurd
Hallelujah Anyway by Slim Cessna's Auto Club
Callin' In Twisted by The Rev. Horton Heat
Party Dolls and Wine by Eddie Spaghetti
Window Up Above by The Blasters
Roadside Attractions by Marcia Ball
I Miss My Boyfriend by Folk Uke with Shooter Jennings

Six Days on the Road by Taj Mahall
Don't Push Me Too Far by Deke Dekerson
Hambone by Rayburn Anthony
Devil's Right Hand by The Highwaymen
Honky Tonkers Don't Cry by Dale Watson
Treat Her Right by The Riptones
Sparkling Brown Eyes by Webb Pierce
There Stands the Glass by Gal Holiday
Darktown Strutter's Ball by Howard Armstrong

Footprints in the Snow by Bill Monroe & The Bluegrass Boys
Are You Washed in the Blood by Red Allen
Don't Make Me Go To Bed and I'll Be Good by Mac Wiseman
Tragic Romance by The Stanley Brothers
1952 Vincent Black Lightning by Del McCroury Band
Love and Wealth by Earl Scruggs
Salty Dog Blues by Curley Seckler
Lonesome and Dry as a Bone by Joe Diffie
Gosh I Miss You All the Time by Jim & Jesse
Steamboat Whistle Blues by John Hartford

Whiskey Flats by E. Christina Herr & Wild Frontier
Cross My Heart by Martin Zellar
Where's Eddie? by Drive-By Truckers
(Now And Then) There's A Fool Such As I by John Doe & The Sadies
Never Could Walk the Line by Eric Hisaw
Presently In The Past by Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks
Old Rub Alcohol Blues by Doc Boggs
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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Steve Terrell is proud to report to the monthly Freeform American Roots Radio list

TERRELL'S TUNEUP: Stayin' Revived

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
April 8, 2011


No, it wasn’t just a fad. The most recent “soul revival” began erupting some time after the beginning of the new century. As I’ve said before, at any given time in the past few decades there has probably always been some kind of soul music revival going on somewhere.

And as far as I’m concerned, that’s a good thing.

Sharon Jones has come as close to mainstream success as any independent artist can achieve these days. She and her label mates at Daptone Records keep cranking out exciting music. Bettye LaVette is now getting the recognition she deserved in the late ’60s.

Meanwhile, the likes of Lee Fields, Charles Walker and The Dynamites, Wiley and The Checkmates, J.C. Brooks and The Uptown Sound, and The Diplomats of Solid Sound — not to mention soul crazies like King Khan and The Shrines — roam the planet.

The cool thing, especially with some of the younger warriors in this movement (if you can call it that), is that the best of them aren’t out to merely re-create those glorious Stax/Volt days of yore. You’ll hear the energy of punk rock, the rawness of gutbucket blues, and all sorts of stray influences that keep the sound vital and refreshing.

Here are some recent rock ’n’ soul-drenched CDs that have had me in a cold sweat lately:

* Scandalous by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears. This highly anticipated album by the Austin band is the follow-up to the group’s acclaimed 2009 debut, Tell ’Em What Your Name Is. In a recent interview with The Boston Globe, the producer of the album, Jim Eno (also the drummer of Spoon), said he consciously emphasized The Honeybears’ punk influence.

Indeed, several songs sound more like hard rock than sweet soul. “Jesus Took My Hand,” for instance, sounds less like gospel than Black Keys-style minimalist blues-rock. The same is true with “You Been Lyin’,” on which Lewis is backed by a Dallas gospel group called The Relatives.

“The Ballad of Jimmy Tanks,” dominated by the guitars of Zach Ernst and Lewis, sounds like a pumped-up take on some long-lost, primal Junior Kimbrough song. And speaking of blues, it would appear that Lewis and the band had Mississippi in mind on the song “Messin’.” This one owes a lot to Elmore James and John Lee Hooker.

There is a cover song on the album — a passionate take on “Since I Met You Baby.” This song, written by Texas bluesman Ivory Joe Hunter, has been passed back and forth between blues, country, and rock artists for decades. Jerry Lee Lewis, B.B. King, Freddy Fender, Sam Cooke, and even Bobby Vee have taken their turn with this classic. The Honeybears do a slow, swaying take on the tune as Black Joe shouts the lyrics.

But don’t think this band has forgotten its soul roots. “Booty City” gives the Honeybear horn section and everyone else in the band a good workout. “Livin’ in the Jungle,” driven by the horns and a scratchy guitar hook, could be a funky cross between “Gimme Shelter” (the Merry Clayton version of the Stones song) and the Guns N’ Roses hit with a similar name.

Hands down, my favorite song here is the hilarious “Mustang Ranch,” a tale about young Black Joe getting his “ham glazed” during a visit to a legal whorehouse in Nevada. Not only is the story funny, but it’s probably the rockingest track on the whole record.

Unfortunately, when I bought this CD (yes, I’m a critic who frequently buys music!), I didn’t pick up the deluxe edition, which contains four extra songs, including a hard-rocking version of Robert Johnson’s “Stop Breaking Down.” Oh well, that’s why God created downloading.

Check out www.blackjoelewis.com. There you’ll find a link to iTunes, which sells several tracks by Lewis at the South by Southwest Festival last month.

* No Time for Dreaming by Charles Bradley. Although Bradley is more than twice Black Joe Lewis’ age, Lewis has recorded more records than Bradley. Bradley is in his 60s, and this is his first album. He’s knocked around for years from New York to Maine to Alaska to California and back, playing gigs in local bands but mainly earning his living as a cook.

So he’s a late bloomer, but I like this flower. His voice is rough and gritty and more than a little world-weary. His band is a tight little group that seems to be well-versed in the records of Otis Redding and Al Green.

The album starts off with a terse little apoc-soul-liptic tune called “The World Is Going Up in Flames.” A bass line that almost suggests reggae throbs as stuttering horns punctuate Bradley’s growls and moans.

This and the song “Why Is It So Hard,” which starts out with the musical question, “Why is it so hard to make it in America?” might suggest a modern take on Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. (There’s also “Trouble in the Land,” a barely-over-a-minute instrumental that sounds a little like Hugh Masekela’s “Grazin’ in the Grass” — except for the police siren in the background.)

Most of the songs, however, don’t deal with sociopolitical issues. Bradley is usually pleading with lovers in doomed love affairs. And there’s plenty of autobiography here, too. In fact, the climax of No Time is “Heartache and Pain,” which tells the story of Bradley’s brother being shot and killed by a family member.

“I woke up this morning, my mama she was crying/ So I looked out my window/Police lights were flashing/People were screaming so I ran out to the street/A friend grabbed my shoulders and said these words to me/‘Life is full of sorrow. So I have to tell you this/Your brother is gone.’”

He shouts about heartaches and pain, and you believe him.

Blog Bonus:

Here's The Relatives playing with Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears last month at SXSW

Thursday, April 07, 2011

Grammys Shelve Native American and Other Awards

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New Mexican
April 7, 2011


In what will undoubtedly be seen as a blow to American Indian musicians in New Mexico, the Recording Academy announced Wednesday that there will no longer be a Grammy Award for Native American music.
Robert Mirabal

The move is part of a major consolidation of Grammy categories announced in Los Angeles. Instead of the 109 categories awarded this year, next year there will be only 78 categories.

“It ups the game in terms of what it takes to receive a Grammy and preserves the great esteem (in) which it’s held in the creative community, which is the most important element,” Recording Academy President and CEO Neil Portnow told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

“This is really disappointing,” said Harlan McKosato of Albuquerque in a telephone interview Wednesday. McKosato, who writes a column on Indian issues for The New Mexican but is best known for hosting the syndicated radio show Native America Calling, has served on the committee that screens entries for the Native American Grammy.

“The Native American category was always in peril,” McKosato said. A major problem was that sometimes there were barely enough entries in a year to qualify, he said. (The minimum was 25 albums.) Only “traditional” Native music was eligible, so Indian rock, blues or jazz bands didn’t qualify, McKosato said.

Also disappointed at the news was Claude Stephenson, the state folklorist and a member of the state Music Commission.

“We were trying to get them to create more categories,” Stephenson said.

The Native American music category was introduced to the Grammys in 2001. In the past 11 years, several albums by New Mexico artists and recordings at New Mexico events won the Grammy for best Native American recording.

Robert Mirabal of Taos Pueblo won in 2008 for his album Totemic Flute Chants. Black Eagle, a Jemez Pueblo drum group, won in 2004 for its album Flying Free.

In 2001 and this year, the Native American Grammy went to various-artist albums recorded live at the annual Gathering of Nations PowWow in Albuquerque.

Black Eagle of Jemez Pueblo
Albums by Native American musicians can still be nominated, but they would compete in a newly created category called “Regional Roots Music,” which also will include traditional Hawaiian and Cajun/zydeco albums — two other categories that were deleted.

Some of the other categories that will disappear are Southern, Country or Bluegrass Gospel, Traditional Gospel Album, Tejano, Norteño, Children’s Spoken Word, Chamber Music, Classical Crossover and Latin Jazz. There will no longer be separate categories for best male and female singers in pop, country or R&B.

“All categories will remain, they’ll just be found in different genres,” Portnow told the Los Angeles Times. “The message isn’t about cutting, it’s about changing the way we present the awards. We welcome all artists who make music in the Grammy process, it’s just going to look a little different.”

The Times said the changes “ “implicitly acknowledge a widespread complaint by industry observers and casual fans that the number of categories had become bloated and unwieldy.”

Sunday, April 03, 2011

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, April 3, 2011
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M.
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

Webcasting!
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Let it Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Mustang Ranch by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears
Chicken Baby by The Monsters
No Reason to Complain by The Alarm Clocks
Snake Pit by Hipbone Slim & The Knee-Tremblers
Love by Country Joe & The Fish
Survive or Die by Nekromantix
Your Haunted Head by Concrete Blonde
Pumpin' For the Man by Ween

Run Run Run by Velvet Underground
Ballad Of The Fogbound Pinhead by Thee Headcoats
Powder Keg by The Fall
Theme From Cheers by Titus Andronicus
Step Aside by Sleater-Kinney
Desdemona by John's Children
Matador by Pinata Protest
Do You Know What I Idi Amin by Chuck E. Weiss with Tom Waits

Wogs Will Walk by Cornershop
Shuffling Spectre by Dan Melchior und Das Menace
One Night of Sin by Simon Stokes
I Can't Hide by The Fleshtones
Monster Blues by Dex Romweber
You Gotta Work by Nathaniel Meyer
Psycho Daisies by The Hentchmen
Loose by Buick MacKane
Pucker Up Buttercup by Paul "Wine" Jones

Brand New memory by Exene Cervenka
Crawdad Hole by Big Jack Johnson
Why Is It So Hard by Charles Bradley
Mama Don't Like My Man by Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
Johnny Mathis' Feet by American Music Club
Love Letters Straight From Your Heart by Kitty Lester
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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Saturday, April 02, 2011

A Song That Crossed Enemy Lines

UPDATED
 "The krauts ain't following ya too good on 'Lili Marlene'
tonight, Joe. Think somethin' happened to their tenor?"
Cartoon by Bill Mauldin
Here's a little tune I just stumbled upon while looking for something else on YouTube. I remember this melody chiefly as the song they used to play while all the kids skipped out to do square dances during every end-of-the-year May Festival at Nichols Hills Elementary School in the '60s .

But the history of this tune called "Lili Marleen" runs much deeper than that. The lyrics originally were written during World War One by a German soldier. But by 1939 it had been made into a song and was recorded by a German pop singer named Lale Anderson.

It was a hit and was broadcast over Radio Belgade for the benefit of German soldiers. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels got sick of it and, like the Nazi he was, ordered the station to stop playing the record.. But apparently there were so many requests for it from Axis troops all over Europe, Herr Goebbels relented, and Radio Belgrade began using it as its sign-off song every night.

But it's not just the Germans who loved it. It quickly became popular with British soldiers fighting in North Africa . Versions came out in different languages , English, French, Italian, Spanish, probably others.

The lyrics speak of a young soldier on sentry duty, pining for his faraway sweetheart, Lili Marleen. That's a feeling that cuts across all cultures, even on battlefields.

Here's some versions of the song. First here's Lale Anderson, singing it in 1939



Here's German New Wave queen Nina Hagen dueting with Greek singer Nana Mouskouri.



And here's one from the early '90s from an Estonian band called Vennaskond.



And here's a version by Polish rocker Kazik Staszewski



And yes, it has been done in English. (Thanks, Randy!) Here's Marlene Dietrich




(This post was updated 12-5-16 to replace a video that had vanished and to add Zuch Kazik's and Marlene Dietrich's versions. Then it was updated 6-18-20 to replace a bunch of vanished videos.)

For more deep dives into songs, check out The Stephen W. Terrell Web Log Songbook

Friday, April 01, 2011

THE SANTA FE OPRY PLAYLIST

Friday, April 1, 2011
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Fridays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell

101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell@ksfr.org

OPENING THEME: Buckaroo by Buck Owens & The Buckaroos
Back from the Shadows Again by The Firesign Theatre
Stupid Texas Song by Austin Lounge Lizards
The Weakest Man by Drive-By Truckers
What's Goin' On With Grandpa by The Possum Posse
That's Why I Ride by Gal Holiday
Big Mamou by Waylon Jennings
Lover Please by Kinky Friedman
She's Gone Away by The Blasters
Piss Up a Rope by Ween

Anything Goes at a Rooster Show (Rooster Anthem) by The Imperial Rooster
Reefer Load by Scott H. Biram
Monkey Rag by Asylum Street Spankers
Have You Seen Your Mother Baby Standing in the Shadows by The Hickoids
The Unballed Ballad Of The New Folksinger by Slim Cessna's Auto Club
Each Night I Try by Robbie Fulks
Hogs On The Highway by Bad Livers
I Hate These Songs by Dale Watson


APRIL FOOLS SET 
Foolin' Around by Buck Owens
A Such Such As i by Marti Brom
I'd Rather Be Your Fool Johnny Paycheck
100 Percent Fool by The Derailers
The Fool by Zeno Tornado & The Boney Google Brothers
Fool About You by Ronnie Dawson
Fool About You by Sleepy LaBeef
Honey You Had Me Fooled by The Defibulators
Fool For You by Joe Swank & The Zen Pirates
Doin' What Comes Easy to a Fool by Junior Brown
Fool I Am by Pat Fergusson

Break This Fool by The Texas Saphires
Genitalia of a Fool by Cornell Hurd
That Kind of Fool by Jerry Lee Lewis & Keith Richards
Big Fool by Ronnie Self
Jealous Fool by Jimmy Breedlove
Life of a Fool by Paul Burch
Fools Fall in Love by Butch Hancock
Married Man's A Fool by Ry Cooder
CLOSING THEME: Comin' Down by The Meat Puppets

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TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

  Sunday, March 17, 2024 KSFR, Santa Fe, NM, 101.1 FM  Webcasting! 10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time Host: Steve Te...